I know several USAMO/USAJMO or hackathon gods or USACO Platinums who got rejected from MIT and Stanford. They are strong at academics and have strong involvement in other areas.
Do you think that these people would have got in if they had one less of disadvantages (asian, male, cs, bay area)?
Or are they generally lacking solid leadership roles and things that show personality outside of grinding olympiads, or worse LORs due to their junior year being online? Or is it the essays?
Both of the schools you mentioned have acceptance rates well under 10% and must be considered reaches for ANY unhooked applicant. There are many more extremely well qualified applicants than spots available.
Itâs a numbers game. There are simply too many qualified applicants. Donât assume that there was something lacking or that their essays werenât good enough. Most qualified applicants do not get accepted.
I think you mean one less advantage.
OP - you/we donât have a clue of the totality of the applicants portfolio beyond you saying they have strong academics.
So many attributes are looked at in a college applicant.
I suggest you not worry about others but you worry about presenting yourself the best way you can - and that includes have a list of reaches, targets, and safeties.
The amount of people who can get into MIT and Stanford is miniscule - and you canât assume just because someone is accomplished that they make the cut.
Maybe all those who were accepted also were Asian males going into cs from the bay area (or LA, or NYC) with hackathon experience, who also had great LOR, essays, and leadership.
No way to know.
Once you remove recruited athletes and other âALDC types,â and then account for geographic diversity, gender balance, interest in various academic programs, etc., the chance of admission to these two premier schools is extremely difficult for EVERYONE.
Sorry to be thick, but what does this mean? Athletes, Legacies, Donors, and Children of professors/staff?
I agree with the poster who said you donât know the totality of another studentâs application.
What colleges are the students you are talking about going to attend?
A timely presentation of an early Justin Lin film by some Asian American (not MIT or Stanford) college students:
the dark undercurrent of the script, written by Lin, Ernesto Foronda, and Fabian Marquez, speaks to an Asian American experience. It points to the ticking time bomb of a cohort raised with no goals for life besides academic and career success, who have been told that, in order to make it, they must follow a single, narrowly defined path, with no routes to fuller self-actualization. âBetter Luck Tomorrowâ doesnât ask how Asians might become part of American society, but instead, what they are to make of themselves within it.
From an MIT admissions blog:
"A few years ago, we did not admit a student who had created a fully-functional nuclear reactor in his garage. Think about that for a second.
Now, most students, when I tell them this story, become depressed. After all, if the kid who built a freakinâ nuclear reactor didnât get in to MIT, what chance do they have?
But they have it backwards. In fact, this story should be incredibly encouraging for most students. It should be liberating. Why? Because over a thousand other students were admitted to MIT that year, and none of them built a nuclear reactor!
I donât mean to discourage anything from pursuing incredible science and technology research on their own. If you want to do it, DO IT. But donât do it because you think itâs your ticket to MIT. And that applies to everything you do â classes, SATs, extracurriculars.
There is no golden ticket."* (emphasis added)
Those arenât disadvantages. There was another poster about a year ago with the same complaint: male, asian, CS, bay area.
The Bay Area part is the one that gets me- did you know that there east coast versions of that? students in the the Boston-NYC corridor and the mid-Atlantic corridor all think that they are at a major disadvantage b/c of the intensity of the competition and regional concentration of highly competitive prep schools. People in the DC area complain about the âTJâ effect, in which the top schools cherry-pick who they want from TJ (the star magnet STEM school), and everybody else in the region has to scramble for scraps. IOW- you are not as unique as you think you are in that regard.
As for male, if you are going to say that the acceptance rate for females is higher, 1) not true at Stanford and 2) at MIT the goal is to get a roughly gender balanced class, so you are competing against other guys. As it happens, at this stage 2x as many guys get to the end of HS ready, willing and able for a STEM-intensive university, so there is more competition. There is a lot of talk about âgirls in STEMâ initiatives, but I can tell you 1st hand that a lot of it is talk - and that societal attitudes about men naturally having greater STEM ability than woman are deeply entrenched. Over time that is (slowly!) changing, and as it does, the number of women applying to MIT will increase. In the meantime, being âmaleâ is still an advantage, even if the competition is stiff.
As for Asian? nearly 40% of the class at MIT. Next closest? Caucasian, at 25%. So, being Asian is not exactly a handicap.
CS? itâs a straight up competitive field- but not a disadvantage.
IOW: stop looking at yourself as hard done by. Yes, it is very very competitive to get into MIT or Stamford- but you are at no more of a disadvantage than many many other people.
ALDC comes from the Harvard lawsuit and means basically what you inferred, except that D was said to mean something like deanâs interest list that includes (huge) donorsâ relatives.
I think in official lingo the D stands for âdevelopmentâ candidates. Which translates to high $$ donors like you said.
I think the main thing is just that olympiads are being valued less and less, in favor of âpersonalityâ, âcommunity impactâ, and social justice-related ECs (e.g. nonprofits, activism, etc). Ten years ago someone with USAMO + USACO Plat + USAPhO would without a doubt get into MIT, whereas now thatâs not the case.
I donât think your second scenario is true, since most people who grind olympiad tend to have solid leadership positions (typically in their school clubs for the subjects they grind, and sometimes in other nonprofits), and I see no reason why olympiad grinders would have worse essays or recs than other people. Olympiads losing their value is just part of the trend of objective markers being deemphasized and more focus being shifted on diversity and âpersonalityâ.
I think the main thing is just that olympiads are being valued less and less, in favor of âpersonalityâ, âcommunity impactâ, and social justice-related ECs (e.g. nonprofits, activism, etc).
Olympiads losing their value is just part of the trend of objective markers being deemphasized and more focus being shifted on diversity and âpersonalityâ.
And whatâs so wrong with that?
The way you phrased this seems very judgmental of people who are not Olympiad competitors, and honestly it feels quite demeaning. Maybe it might be pertinent to reflect about a possible sense of academic superiority.
Many of my daughterâs Asian male friends from the Bay Area have done very well for themselves in college admissions. A large proportion of them are indeed studying computer science at various institutions in CA and the US in general. Initially I was curious about the preponderance of aspiring computer scientists amongst her Asian friends but after meeting and chatting with their families it became clear that the apple doesnât fall far from the tree. This is the Bay Area, that attracts computer scientists from around the world so itâs not surprising that the children of gifted computer scientists might want to try out that profession also. Iâm not aware of any of them competing in math and science Olympiads; they were all Band kids.
Iâm thinking that the problem you are describing OP, if there is indeed one, is a problem of differentiation. Colleges usually look at candidates in the context of their locale and simply cannot take all the talented aspiring computer scientists from the Bay Area. That is at least how I
interpret the perceived problem.
As far as the science and math Olympiads, I would think that they would count as positives both in the intellectual development and the college careers of the students participating. I know a math-obsessed student in a small European country that won a medal in an International mathematical Olympiad. He was offered a variety of free rides to universities in the US (talked about often in these forums) but chose to study math in his home countryâs top math department. I donât know enough about the world of math and science Olympiads to help you out here, just thought Iâd offer a story of someone who indeed differentiated themselves in that arena.
Just my few observations that might totally miss the mark!
Whatâs so wrong with that is that the Olympiads are largely merit-based, completely objective awards that indicate extraordinary accomplishment in a subjectâexactly what these schools are looking for. Should we not expect our best and brightest studentsâthe ones that will likely be leading labs and research in the futureâto be admitted to the best and brightest schools?
I didnât find the comment demeaning. It is not judgmental on people who are not Olympiad competitors, but judgmental of the system that has begun to value merit less and less. Of course, personality is still an important factor, but it is much more subjective and liable to error. What if you had a bad interviewer? Or your AO had a bad day?
I didnât think the comment had a sense of academic superiority, it just acknowledged that a group of very talented students exist.
I cast no views on where anyone is coming from and what is motivating them. But do you really think these Olympiads mean something greater than a student who has excellent grades, test scores, LoRs, essays, but whose ECs have focused on helping people?
I really have no clue about these âOlympiadsâ. My kids donât do them, yet my DD is tops in her IB Dip class. She does a lot of social âstuffâ. Does this make her a weaker student for a âtop schoolâ? I sure hope not, but we will see.
Doing well in a contest is not necessarily a sign of leadership. To me, this is what many of the âtop schoolsâ are looking for: those that can cut it and who can make a difference. As an employer myself, Iâd much rather take a chance on someone who has superb stats AND who has tried to benefit someone besides themselves vs. the same student with those stats that has only focused on contests.
Just my thoughts.